The Nation; Labor:

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Samuel Gompers, who summed up all of organized labor's goals at the turn of the century in the single word “more,” woulc have, been nonplussed at the gloomy mood that hung over meetings of top unionists from coast to coast last week.

By the yardstick laid down by the founder of the Ameri can Federation of Labor, virtu ally every big union could exult in the fattest wage gains in its history. The mammoths of big business, from basic steel to the Bell System, have just signed long‐term contracts which, in the words of Joseph A. Beirne, president of the Com munications Workers of Amer ca, make “the largest package we've ever won before look like small potatoes.”

Yet the accent at the quar terly meeting of the A.F.L. C.I.O. Executive Council in San Francisco was all on inflation, unemployment and the job‐kill ing inroads of foreign goods on markets traditionally dominat ed by American‐made products. The same lugubrious themes cast a pall over a half‐dozen state and international union conventions in New York City, Miami Beach, Dallas and Cleve land. “We can't win for losing,” was the way one building trades chief expressed it. “The better we do, the surer we come out cutting our own throats.”

One reason for this doleful view was reflected in figures made public by. Herbert Bien stock, regional director of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statis tics, as delegates gathered for the convention of the New York State A.F.L.‐C.I.O. His report showed that the average wage of factory workers in the met ropolitan area had reached a record high of $142 a week this year, an increase of nearly $30 since 1967. But the com bined bite of higher prices and higher taxes has not only eaten up all of the increase; it has actually left the average family head with $1.60 less in “real” spending power.

Even more disheartening was the aftermath of what I. W. Abel, president of the United Steelworkers of America, had hailed just two weeks ago as the “most successful” contract negotiations in the 35 years since the New Deal gave birth to the union. The pact calls for 31 per cent in pay increas es over three years, with nearly half of the increases effective at once. What pleased the union even more was that It racked up this whopping package with out a strike that would have taken 400,000 workers away from the blast furnaces and open hearths.

Two quick developments took much of the edge off the union joy. One was an immediate an nouncement by the major steel producers, that they would put into effect on a gradual basis a general price increase of 8 per cent, the second big increase this year. But, even before the price rises began exerting their deadening effect on steel sales, the slack basic market and the huge backlogs of steel, which industrial users had stockpiled in fear of a possible strike, com bined to shut down many mills and make upward of 90,000 un ionists idle.

As if that were not bad enough, the industry last week gave tacit acknowledgement that the sogginess of the econ omy made it doubtful that the steel companies could make their higher prices stick. The tip‐off came In a postponement of higher prices for the steel sheets used to make automobiles, refrigerators, washing ma chines and other appliances.

For the union, the only thing more discouraging than a big price boost, with its depressive effect on orders, was the indus try's hint that things were al ready so had in this adminis tered‐price field that it could not even make a stab at ask ing for more money. When the strike‐hedge inventories are chewed up, expanded reliance on steel from Japan and West Germany may force domestic producers to cancel all or most of the price increases on a per manent basis.

In Miami Beach, where the United Transportation Union was meeting after negotiating a pact that couples pay increases of 42 per cent over 42 months with changes in featherbedding work rules, a spokesman acknowl edged that reaction to the agreement was mixed: “It was a victory, but not like Welling ton over Napoleon. It was more like the North in the Civil, War; when you get through, you have to ask what did you win? The alternative was desperation, and desperation meant destruction.”

Given such reactions to high priced settlements, it was no surprise that George Meany, who marks his 77th birthday tomorrow, led the A.F.L.‐C.I.O. council in a blanket denunciation of the Nixon Administration's “gross mismanagement” of the economy and a renewed call for mandatory controls on wages, prices, profits and executive bo nuses.

But, even within labor, sup port for mandatory centrols is stronger among the big nation al unions whose members al ready have been guaranteed sub stantial pay increases running well into 1973 than it is among those still waiting to catch up. Thus, John J. Pilch, president of the International Typographical Union, opened the convention in

Hollywood, Fla., with a declara tion of unalterable opposition to wage‐price controls. He said their sole practical effect would be to hold down wages while prices kept soaring.

The Administration is still ad amant against compulsory re straints on either wages or prices. Secretary of Labor James D. Hodgson went before the A.F.L.‐C.I.O. council to reiterate the President's view that con trols don't work in a peacetime economy. Mr. Hodgson urged la bor to combat inflation by spur ring increased labor productiv ity, but Mr. Meany shot that down by declaring that Ameri can workers were already “tops” in efficiency. The real way to spur productivity, the union chief insisted, was to get the jobless back to work. That left everything right back where it was before the dia logue started.

Relations with the Adminis tration weren't made any more cordial when the council got around to talking about Mr. Nix on's forthcoming trip to Com munist China. Mr. Meany, who has been as fervent as the American Legion in his backing of American policy in Vietnam, called the Nixon visit to Peking “the No. 1 stunt by the No. 1 stunt man of our times.” He saw in the trip parallels to pre World War II appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini and empha sized his own belief that “Red China” was a dictatorship in eligible for membership in the United Nations. The full coun cil was not quite that didactic, and four of its members voted against the official go‐slow mo tion on letting Peking into the United Nations. But the real power still rests with Mr. Meany. At 77, his voice re mains the voice of organized la bor.